It was a miserable year, crowned by a dismal night. After a slump in listening figures and a downturn in advertising revenue, commercial radio made it a triple whammy at the Sony Radio Academy Awards as rivals at the BBC walked into the night with by far the most gongs.

The corporation won 24 of the 33 gold awards, including all the specific programme awards bar one. Four out of the five station awards went to commercial radio, but the ad-funded sector missed out completely in programme categories that comprise the core of their output, notably news and music.

The BBC, naturally, swept the board in the drama, comedy and speech categories, which were dominated by wins for Radio 4. Commercial radio's only big win came when GCap Media's Classic FM beat Radio 1 and Radio 2 to win UK station of the year (it has played a clip announcing the coup every hour since the ceremony last Monday). There was a gold for Planet Rock, the digital-only classic rock station conceived in a pub by GCap's CEO Ralph Bernard. And Gaydar Radio capped its fifth birthday celebrations by winning digital terrestrial station of the year - demonstrating better than any other service how digital is starting to serve specific communities with innovative and distinctive stations.

Rampant performance

But why the near whitewash for commercial radio? In the past there have been arguments that the awards categories are biased in favour of the BBC, with its greater resources, larger reach and lion's share of national analogue networks. That excuse does not wash now. The Sony radio awards committee has fine-tuned the prize categories over the years and attempted to create as level a playing field as possible. Awards such as best breakfast show and best music radio personality should be bread and butter to commercial radio, whose output is almost entirely music-led. Yet they won none of these categories.

The BBC picked up every single one. The Today programme was named best breakfast show, and even the best specialist music programme award went to the BBC Asian Network, largely a speech service, for Bobby Friction's show.

If commercial radio is going to increase its gong count it must target awards it can win. Drama, comedy, feature and other high-end speech awards are probably in safe BBC hands before entries are even submitted. The music awards are another matter. Is it really the case that commercial radio cannot find, tucked away among its 300-plus stations, a talent to challenge Radio 1's Colin Murray, who carried off the presenter gold this year?

Commercial radio employs far more DJs than the BBC, yet also missed out on the music radio personality award, won by Chris Evans, Radio 2's controversial drivetime host. Evans is without doubt a gifted radio talent, but is he really peerless? He started in commercial radio at Piccadilly in Manchester (much like Radio 1's Chris Moyles, who learned his craft at Aire FM in Leeds), so where is the next generation of natural radio talent?

One pairing which did make the nominations is 96 Trent Fm's Jo and Twiggy, but they are pretty much alone among the hundreds of DJs on commercial radio in the UK. Judges are instructed to assess entries only on the basis of the tape and supplementary material submitted. One possible explanation for commercial radio's inability to punch its weight could be that the award entries are not as well put together as the BBC's. Anecdotal evidence garnered from my conversations with judges, admittedly at the Grosvenor House Hotel bars, suggests there is something in this. The alternative conclusion has to be that commercial radio music programming is just not up to winning awards.

Maybe the commercial imperative to deliver an audience to sustain advertising revenue is inconsistent with the criteria by which judges decide awards?

With few exceptions, programme directors at small and large stations in the UK were disappointed at commercial radio's showing at the Sonys. The industry body, RadioCentre, put on a brave face, focusing on the station awards, for which the sector should be congratulated. From Heart's Francis Currie, the station programmer award winner, to Isle of Wight Radio's triumph in the smallest station category, there are pockets of achievement.

No one is suggesting that there should be any correlation between audience figures and the number of Sony awards won, but the BBC's rampant performance in both does put the industry out of balance. Commercial radio needs to think carefully about whether the Sonys are an important barometer of performance or just a bloody good piss-up.

· Paul Robinson is a media consultant

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